


i think your eyes could use some sleep

by scenedenial



Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: Caretaking, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Panic Attacks, Sex, Sexual Content, Worry, and everyone in the FICTIONAL scenario is cool with it, anxious noel, bottom Noel, friendships, pretty Noel-centric, the boys are with their girls and with each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 20:44:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20032081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scenedenial/pseuds/scenedenial
Summary: Cody and Aleena are friends, good friends, but sometimes they feel more like business partners—cofounders ofKeeping Noel Happy and Okay Inc.





	i think your eyes could use some sleep

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t really know what this is!! I hope it’s at least readable?? Lmk what u think in the comments!
> 
> Also, obligatory RPF disclaimer: none of this is meant to be taken seriously, and it doesn’t reflect how I actually think these people who I love and respect live their lives. Please don’t send it to anyone affiliated with them :’)

Gray, gray skies out the windows of the tour bus. Bundled in jackets and hats on McDonald’s runs. Fingers freezing as they sit on the steps of the bus, hitting Cody’s vape because it’s all they can think to do. It rains all the way up the west coast. Cody tucks his fingers under Noel’s thigh while they watch movies, kisses the corner of his mouth before they go to bed. Noel gets a cold, passes it on to Cody, and they incubate it between them in the too-tight space that soon becomes littered with used tissues and cough drops and torn-open packets of TheraFlu. 

Aleena arrives a week into the tour and Noel damn near cries when he kisses her that first time. He buries his face in the warm place beneath her ear and lets her hold him, rock his body like he’s a child.

She sleeps next to him in the bed that’s almost too small for one grown body, her leg thrown over his. He’s so scared that as soon as he lets go of her hand, she’ll leave again. 

Aleena’s hands on Noel in the middle of the night, her breath warm and sweet against his jaw. Cody tugging Noel’s shirt up in the green room not ten minutes before they go onstage. Noel cracking jokes in front of a thousand people with a brand new hickey burning under his collar. It all makes his head spin. 

When he fucks Aleena, it’s like coming home. It’s like laying down in bed after the longest day of your life. It’s like the moment you breach a swimming pool after too long underneath, and all the air comes rushing into your lungs and tells you you’re alive. 

When he fucks Cody, it’s like cracking knuckles hard enough to hurt. It’s like running until you can barely see and your whole body is made up of adrenaline. It’s like laughing hard enough that you can’t be sure you won’t die. 

Noel sits on the fake-leather couch in the back of the bus and watches Cody lean in and kiss Aleena, his hand looking huge on her delicate-boned jaw. Noel sucks in a breath. They break apart after a moment, laughing, her palm coming down on his forearm like he just made a joke.

“That,” Cody says, “was too far.” His eyes are shining. Aleena nods, grinning, tosses her hair over her shoulder.

“Anything for you, Noel, but maybe not that.”

Noel is _hard_ and flushed and he wants them to put their hands on him. 

Cody slinks across the tiny space, slides in next to Noel, presses a hand into his chest. Cody looks at Aleena like he’s asking for permission, and she nods with a self-satisfied smile on her face. 

Cody nips at Noel’s earlobe, the sharp burst of pain sending a shiver down his back. Noel bites his lip and sighs. 

“You good?” Cody asks, his voice husky and low. He’s wearing a beanie, one that he filched from their boxes of merch, and an oversized hoodie that makes him look small and soft. Noel nods, overwhelmed by it all. 

Aleena sits on his other side, takes one of Noel’s hands in her own and guides it to her chest. He cups her breast in his palm, can feel that she isn’t wearing a bra under the long-sleeved shirt that’s actually his. 

Then Cody grabs Noel’s dick, and Aleena’s mouth is on his, and he can’t see or breathe or think. 

—

Cody and Aleena are friends, good friends, but sometimes they feel more like business partners—cofounders of _Keeping Noel Happy and Okay Inc._ Cody takes an Uber to meet Kelsey at the airport, and while he’s gone, Aleena texts him.

_Aleena: I don’t think Noel’s doing too good rn_

_Cody: wym??_

_Aleena: He’s like quiet and shaky. Can’t tell if he’s just a little sick still or if he’s extra panicky_

_Cody: shit has he eaten?_

_Aleena: Idk I’ll make him some tea and see if he’ll have a bagel or smth_

_Cody: good idea I’ll be back soonish_

It goes like that, more or less, a fair amount. It’s not like they _worry_ about Noel, per se, but it’s not like they aren’t _thinking_ about it. Because Noel had that panic attack onstage in San Fransisco, and since then he’s been almost _timid_, which is about the last thing that defines Noel’s personality. 

So, yeah, maybe they’re worrying a little bit.

Kelsey rubs Cody’s back and tells him that Noel will be okay, that he’s grown and surrounded by people and that nothing will get out of hand. Her voice is soothing and her words make sense, and Cody wishes he could believe her. 

—

They do the night’s show and it’s _good_. Amped up crowd, jokes landing and landing again, Cody’s smile flashing blindingly under the lights. They get offstage and Noel is _pumped_, sweeping Aleena up in the back room and kissing her hard. She runs her fingers through the front bit of his hair and smiles at him like she gets it. 

Kelsey and Cody are talking about going out, getting drinks, and Noel agrees instantly. He feels like there’s gasoline in his veins, and after so many days of feeling gray and muted and underwater, it’s so welcome that he could cry. 

Aleena gets the Uber, holds Noel’s hand in her pocket as they stand on the curb in the sodden darkness to wait. Cody glances over at him, thick brows quirked up in a question. Noel knows what it is—_are you okay_—but he just smiles and looks away.

Sometimes, Noel wishes Cody didn’t know him like he does. Wishes that he wasn’t able to read his face instantly with nothing more than a glance or a word. Sometimes Noel wishes he could become invisible. 

The Uber arrives, throwing up a spray of rainwater as it coasts to the curb. Noel sits between Cody and Aleena in the backseat, feeling his heartbeat pulse in his throat and the palms of his hands. 

—

They get _wasted._ Cody doesn’t even mean to, but some people recognize them in the club and keep buying them shots, and he keeps downing them, one after the other. Kelsey is wearing a short red dress and sneakers and the light flashes off her shoulders and the whites of her eyes as they dance. She looks hot as fuck, and he kisses her in the middle of the dance floor, grinds against her like they’re teenagers at a CYO dance. The lights are colorful and bright and the music is so loud he can feel it in his rib cage and it doesn’t take long for the room to start spinning like the world’s trippiest ferris wheel. 

Kelsey goes to the bathroom to pee and fix her hair (though Cody can’t see what needs fixing), and Cody tracks down Noel and Aleena at the other side of the room. Noel is leaning against the wall, a drink in his hand, and Aleena has her arm around his waist as she tilts her head to talk to another girl who is a stranger to Cody. He stands next to Noel, nudges his foot with his own.

“Hey, man.” He kind of has to yell over the music. God, it’s been a while since he’s been in a club like this. It makes him feel _old_. “Whatcha drinking?”

“Whiskey sour.” Noel is slurring a tiny bit, his eyes drunkenly unfocused. “Total pussy drink. Aleena ordered them.” 

Aleena swats Noel on the shoulder but barely looks away from the girl she’s speaking to. Cody laughs. 

“I’m fucked up.” Cody says, because all of a sudden the room’s spinning has increased in velocity. He fights the urge to grab for Noel’s hand, for some sense of stability. 

“Me too.” Noel is flushed in the face. He looks _lovely_, really. 

Aleena, to her credit, seems far more put together than Noel looks and Cody feels. Her hair is glossy and there’s a lipstick stain on the edge of her glass. It’s not difficult for Cody to understand why Noel is in love with her. 

“Do you wanna dance?” Cody asks Noel on a sudden whim. He doesn’t care that there are fans in here. He doesn’t care that the photos will end up on Twitter, probably. He’s drunk and he wants to feel Noel’s biceps flex under his t-shirt. 

“Sure.” Noel says, unprecedentedly, a sloppy smile curving on his lips. “Lemme ask the lady.” 

He and Aleena have a short conversation that Cody can’t quite hear, and then Aleena’s pulling him in by the wrist to whisper in his ear. 

“Don’t let Noel drink anymore, yeah?” She pecks a kiss onto Cody’s cheek before he has time to question her rule. And when Noel takes Cody by the hand and leads him to the dance floor, he forgets to think about it. 

—

Cody’s a good dancer. Noel wouldn’t have really considered him one, like, wouldn’t have named that as one of his _talents_ if asked, but when Cody is twisting and moving his feet and putting his hands on Noel’s shoulders in a half-joking impression of a slow dance, he realizes it’s true.

God, Noel is too drunk. Bright lights, taste of liquor behind his molars, sweat at his temples. Cody’s hair is falling into his face. The song changes from one pulsing, EDM beat to another. Noel feels himself swaying where he stands, just a bit.

The Cody has grabbed him by the shoulders, is looking at him with this concerned, wrinkled-forehead expression on his face that snaps Noel back into it at least partially. 

“You good? You look...” Cody trails off, leaving the sentence hanging in midair. Noel thinks that’s probably not a good sign. “You wanna sit down?” 

Noel shakes his head, but he’s feeling _weird_ all of a sudden, like someone came along and tugged a rug out from under his feet with no warning. His breathing is coming kind of shallowly. 

“C’mon.” Cody says, getting an arm around Noel’s waist. “Let’s get out of this crowd.”

Good idea, thinks Noel, but it’s like a wire has been cut between his brain and his mouth. His face feels cold as hell despite the layer of sweat that he knows is gathering on it. 

“Guys!” Cody shouts, raising his other arm, and it takes Noel a moment to process that he’s flagging down Kelsey and Aleena. “Let’s go outside.”

Noel sees the moment Aleena sees him, sees her eyes pinch up with something like worry. It makes him feel like the shittiest person on earth. He’s scaring her, _them_, for what? Because he can’t hold his liquor? Because the pills he’s been downing twice a day haven’t been doing shit? 

Kelsey holds the door, looking glassy-eyed and concerned. Noel feels bad for her. She doesn’t need to be wrapped up in his shit; she could cut her losses and run. 

The cold night air does feel good, does get through to him a little bit. 

Cody eases him down to the ground so he’s leaning against the brick wall of the club. He closes his eyes and tries not to think, tries to focus on nothing but the feeling of Aleena’s palm on his knee, rubbing it in slow, gentle circles. 

“It’s fine, baby. You’re fine.” Aleena’s voice is steady enough, but there’s a crack that punctuates it for a half second and makes Noel want to cry. “Just breathe.”

Noel wishes the concrete underneath him would open up and swallow him whole. 

—

If Cody cries a little bit in the cramped bathroom of the tour bus, sitting on the toilet lid with his head in his hands, it’s only because he’s still drunk, all his emotions rushing and flowing up just under the skin.

Kelsey coaxes him out into the common space, finally, makes him hot chocolate and lets him lay with his head on her chest as they watch mind-numbing reality TV. It helps. She helps.

“Are you okay?” She asks later, brushing Cody’s sweat-stiffened hair off his forehead. She smells like peppermint and bar soap. Her teeth prod at her bottom lip.

“I’m worried about him.” Cody says, and there’s no ignoring the way his voice cracks, the way his next breath shudders wetly on the intake. Kelsey wraps her arms around his back, kisses his temple. She has that weird, magic girl power where she can just murmur and run her fingertips over his skin and make him feel instantly, monumentally better. He loves her. 

“I am too.” Her voice wavers, and he cranes his neck up to kiss the skin under her eye.

—

“Dude,” Noel pushes himself up on his elbow, blinking sleep out of puffy eyes, “what the hell are you doing?”

Cody is sitting at the foot of Noel’s bunk, cross-legged and tired looking with a mug of coffee cradled in his hands. Noel notes the redness of Cody’s eyes, the way the always-dark circles beneath them have shadowed out to resemble craters. Jesus. 

“I was waiting for you to wake up.” 

“I can see that.” Noel is shirtless above the crinkled toss of the gray duvet, and when he glances down he can see a bruise forming on his left pec. Was that left behind by Cody’s mouth or Aleena’s? He can’t remember. He thanks god that they have a night off, no show until tomorrow.

“How’re you doing?” Cody taps a nail against the handle of the mug. Noel lets his arms go so that he flops back down into his stack of pillows. His head aches.

“Man, I’m okay. That’s not an easy question to answer.”

“Yeah, yeah, I bet. I’m sorry.” _Sorry_. Long, Canadian ‘o.’ When Noel first met Cody, that was something he fixated on, all the little regional idiosyncrasies that Noel found fucking _fascinating_ coming from Cody’s mouth. _Sorry. Already. About._ Fucking _zed_.

“Nah, it’s all good. I feel okay, really. Just wiped out.”

“Makes sense.” Cody looks almost nervous, and it makes Noel want to sit up and shake his shoulders and say, _hey, look, it’s still me, I’m still your boy_. Remind Cody that Noel’s just the one he’s fingered open in the shower, in the bunks, in a restaurant bathroom that one time.

“Hey, Cody?”

“Yeah?” 

“Did that... like, did that scare you?” Cody bites his lip, and Noel dreads the answer.

“I mean,” Cody starts, “it seemed a lot worse than what happened on stage a couple weeks ago.”

“Yeah, it was.” Noel pinches the bridge of his nose,

“What, like,” Noel waits for Cody to put the thought together, “what makes some worse than others?”

“Well, the one last night, I don’t know, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Like, I thought I was going to die.” Noel hates saying that kind of shit out loud. That’s more or less the reason that he made it till 23 without sitting in a shrink’s office. More or less the reason he’s still this fucked up today. 

“_Jesus_.” Cody says, blowing air out through his mouth in a huff. He looks genuinely, awfully shocked by the information, and Noel kind of hates him for it. He wants Cody to crawl across him and pull his hair, slap his face so that they can forget this ever happened. “Noel, I had no idea. I’m so sorry.” There it is again. “That’s so fucked up.”

“Yeah.” Noel says, because what else is there to? “It was just, you know, crowded, and I was drunk which always makes it worse.”

Cody nods, eyebrows all knitted together in the middle of his forehead. He kind of looks like he’s gearing up to apologize again, so Noel cuts him off before it can happen.

“Cody?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you fuck me? Right now?”

—

It takes Cody a moment to process the request. 

“I’m serious.” Noel sits all the way up in bed. His hair, not yet brushed or gelled, falls in tiny curls across his forehead. “We can’t just keep sitting here talking about that shit forever. I want to have sex with you.” 

“Are you sure?” Cody asks, not knowing whether or not he should be worried about this turn of events. His cheeks are burning hot. He contemplates, like, texting Aleena to ask her what he should do here. Noel is staring him down with those pale, intense eyes. “Like, really? Right now?”

“Yeah, _Kolodziejzyk_, I’m sure.”

“Man...” Cody rocks back on his heels, leans over to set down the coffee mug. The situation has him, admittedly, hot under the collar, but the last thing he wants to do right now is push some kind of boundary and fuck things up more than they already are. “Fuck, Noel. Jesus.”

“I didn’t fucking _concuss_ myself.” Noel spits, and Cody can tell he’s half-mad now, tired of being treated like something went wrong, probably. Cody knows Noel well enough to know that what he needs is to be pushed down into the mattress and treated like the opposite of something fragile. Like something that won’t shatter under clawing fingers. “I’m not _sick_. I don’t need—” 

Cody cuts him off, gets a palm on his bare chest and pushes him back down. It’s almost gratifying, the way that Noel shuts up instantly, the way a half-dazed smile plays over his lips. 

“Alright, then.” Cody says, nose-to-nose with Noel’s morning breath. “You got it, asshole.”

Noel smirks and closes his eyes. There’s no universe in which Cody won’t give him what he wants. 

Noel’s boxers come off easy, his back arching up as Cody slides them down over his thighs and off his ankles. His legs open easy, Cody hunched between them beneath the comforter because the bus heater has mostly kicked it and the air on his bare skin sends shivers racing. 

Noel likes having his dick sucked, and Cody knows this. When this whole thing started, Aleena gave him some tips—_relax your jaw, use your hands on the base if you can’t deepthroat, focus on the head, he likes that_—but every time Cody’s mouth is on Noel’s cock he can’t form a single coherent thought, let alone work out intricacies of technique. Noel doesn’t seem to mind, really. Cody drools on Noel’s thighs, probably doesn’t keep his teeth out of the way quite enough, but Noel gets his hands in his hair and calls him _pretty boy_ and _baby_. 

Cody pulls off before Noel comes, plants a sloppy-wet kiss on the taut, golden skin of Noel’s stomach. 

“Cody...” Noel murmurs, getting a palm under Cody’s chin to lift his head. Noel already looks fucked out and calmed down, and Cody crawls up his body to kiss him on the mouth.

“Good?” Cody whispers, shoulders hitting up against the top bunk when he adjusts his positioning. When they’re back in LA, Cody is going to spread Noel out on his king sized bed and have at it. 

“Uh huh.” Noel nods, cupping a palm around the back of Cody’s neck. “Can you keep kissing me?” 

It strikes Cody as such a genuine, sweetly plaintive statement that the backs of his eyes heat up. He straddles Noel’s hips, and they’re both butt-ass naked but it somehow feels innocent, almost virginal. 

“Yeah, I can. Of course I can.” 

Cody kisses Noel’s neck, traces up from his collarbone to the apples of his cheeks to his temples and finally down to his lips. Noel is hard against his stomach. Cody presses his lips into the skin behind his ear.

Noel’s eyes are closed, his hands resting open and loose on Cody’s shoulders. It’s quiet quiet, save for the soft hum of the bus on the asphalt of the road. Cody doesn’t stop until Noel’s hand moves, snakes between their bodies to grope at Cody’s dick. 

“You ready?” Cody whispers, not wanting to break them out of the trance that has settled over the bunks. Noel nods. His eyes are huge and dark. 

Cody gropes around in the tiny compartment built into the headboard, finds what he’s looking for. 

Noel is soft and hot inside, and he groans into Cody’s shoulder as he works two fingers in and out until they slide easy. Noel leaves teeth marks in Cody’s skin that Kelsey will run her tongue over when he fucks her later on a different bunk. 

Noel curses under his breath when Cody adds a third finger. Cody knows from experience that his own fingers are thicker than Noel’s by a not-insignificant amount, meaning that even when Noel sends snaps of him fingering himself in the shower, he’s still tight as hell under Cody’s hands. 

“You like that, baby? Little needy thing?” Noel just keens and sighs in response, twisting his pelvis up to adjust the angle. 

Cody takes him to the edge and back again until he’s begging for the real thing, then pulls back to roll on a condom with high-school haste.

Fucking Noel is a goddamn _treat_, because he’s so responsive, so _willing_ and _ready_. Cody hasn’t gotten him to cry during sex yet (from pleasure, not pain), but Aleena says she has and it’s become a secret kind-of goal of Cody’s. One of these days.

If they had more room, Cody might flip them over so Noel could ride his cock, but the bunk is cramped enough as they are, Noel on his back against the mattress, Cody above him. It’s slow and simple, but Noel is swearing steadily into Cody’s ear and Cody’s legs are starting to shake with the sensation of it. 

When Noel comes, he clenches around Cody’s cock at the same time that his arms come up and around Cody’s neck, holding him _close close close_. Cody kisses his face through his orgasm, doesn’t pull out until Noel opens his eyes slow and pushes gently at Cody’s shoulders.

“Okay, cowboy, this is getting sticky.” His voice is all husky and rough and Cody can’t help but lean down once more to stick his tongue between Noel’s teeth. 

They lay next to each other, sweat-damp skin sliding under fingertips, until Cody props himself up on one elbow.

“I could use... a fucking bowl of Lucky Charms.” 

Noel cackles, makes the obligatory leprechaun/short joke, and his eyes look focused. Normal.

—

“I was fucking right.” Kelsey says triumphantly as they stumble out into the tiny galley kitchen. Noel raises his eyebrows at her as she extends a hand to Aleena from across the nook table.

“About?” Cody questions, shirtless and rumpled-looking as he digs through the cabinets for the cereal.

“She bet me ten bucks that you guys were in there fucking.” Aleena offers, laughing. “_I_ said you were just napping, because I’ve never heard you two be that goddamn quiet before.” Noel rubs at the bridge of his nose, definitely blushing. Jesus. Girls don’t let _shit_ slide.

“She’s _right_ that it’s usually, like, screaming and breaking glass, but I knew you’re both too fucking depraved to spend that long in the same room alone without jumping each other’s bones.” Kelsey explains, pocketing the ten that Aleena passes her.

“I mean,” Cody is flushed and grinning as he pours milk into his bowl, “you got it, babe.” 

Noel steps across the floor, leans over the back of Aleena’s seat to kiss her, spider-man style, on the lips. “Come on, honey. Do better next time.”

She smiles at him, turns in her chair to press two fingers into a blossoming hickey on his collarbone. “Nice one, Cody.” 

Cody steps around, mountainous cereal bowl balanced in his hands, and pretends to inspect the bruise he left on Noel. “Eh, not my best work.” 

They laugh, the four of them crowded together in the light-drenched morning, and, god. It feels good.


End file.
